Act Three: "I hold a lamp to meet the Fox King, and the parrots and warblers grow eagles" - Kyushu·Northern Song Dynasty·Liu Juling's "Lamp Oil Bi Tan"
"So these are all stories written by you?" Mu Ziyun was sitting in a simple house with no windows, but he knew it was dark at this time. There was an oil lamp burning on the table. In addition, there was a simple set of The four treasures of the study, and a book made of paper sewn with thick threads. The first page of paper is used as writing, with four thin big characters "Lamp Oil Bi Tan Tan" written on it, and a line of small characters below that reads "Liu Juling".
Next to Mu Ziyun, sitting in front of the table was a middle-aged man with a short beard. This man was Liu Juling, the author of "Lamp Oil Bi Tan". It was he who told Mu Ziyun one by one the previous stories. The story was exciting and moving when told, but people were not elated. Mu Ziyun always felt strange. At this moment, he could not sense where his partner was. He was always alone.
Liu Juling kept reading, staring at the book cover, and replied calmly: "I didn't write it. Pu Zongyi wrote the story of the Fox King, and Bai Songyuan wrote down Du Baoyu in "Hate Is Not Crazy". Han Yuzhen collected the ballads of the golden cage, and I just explained that the sentence on the title page of my book - holding a lamp to meet the fox king, the parrot and the warbler and the eagle, came from these stories."
"Don't you have your own story?" Mu Ziyun asked, also suspicious, "Can't you look at me? Hey... at least open this book. What's the point of always looking at the cover? Don't you have it yet? Start writing?"
"Speaking of stories, I also have one," Liu Juling replied, "a story about an eagle."
"Don't tell me yet, let me guess," Mu Ziyun suddenly joked, "This is also..."
Liu Juling interrupted Mu Ziyun's words and continued: "When I was in Fushan County, I saw such a thing with my own eyes. At that time, there was a drought and the people did not have enough to eat. The government was also kind and paid taxes. It has dropped again and again, but it can never drop to nothing, so you have to give in a little. The trees on the mountain did not even leave their bark. I once saw an old man digging up the soil with his hungry hands, grabbing the soil layer after layer. On the first floor, he bit into his fleshless arm, leaving tooth marks engraved on the bones.
At that time, there was a hunter who had raised an eagle and a dog since he was a child. During the drought, there were almost no living animals on the mountain. The hunting dogs and eagles were useless, and there was no food to eat. They were all skin and bones from hunger. The hunter's wife asked him to choose between a hawk and a dog and kill them quickly. Their two children were about to starve to death. They were all pets raised since childhood, and he was reluctant to kill any of them, but the embarrassment at home had forced him to have no choice but to make a choice.
It is said that the eagle and the dog seemed to understand what their master was going to do, and that day they all rushed to get in front of the hunter, not to survive, but to seek death. That day, the smell of meat came from the Orion's home. The eagle got a bowl of dog meat, but the eagle didn't eat a bite. The hunter vomited after taking a bite of the meat, and sat sadly outside the door. He untied the rope from the eagle's feet and wanted to let it go back to the mountain.
The eagle hovered on the roof of Orion's house for two days. Later, the smell of meat in Orion's house disappeared, and the children began to scream again. The eagle flew away, and Orion's wife scolded him.
Perhaps in order to thank him for not killing, the eagle could always bring back something in its mouth from time to time, including dead mice and wild vegetable roots, which were all edible. The Orion family also relied on these to survive, and when others had already arrived in Yi Even though they have to eat their own children, they can still live a lot. Later, there was really nothing on the mountain, and the eagle had to fly far to find food. The hunter's wife complained more and more, and the hunter also complained to the eagle when it picked up food again, "Why did it gradually become like this?" so little? Can't there be more? 'At first it was just complaints, but later it was just orders and curses. Hunger can make people lose their rationality and reveal their true nature. The Orion family became hungrier and hungrier, and their opinions on the eagle became even greater. Later, it took almost ten days to send them back. With a little bit of food, the hunter's wife began to persuade the hunter to kill the eagle and eat another meal of meat.
It was difficult for the eagle to bring back any more food. After thinking about it, the hunter decided to do what his wife asked. When the eagle happily brought back a dead mouse that he had found after all the hard work, what he was greeted with was The ruthlessness of the hunter. The hunter first let the hawk land on his arm, and then took out the knife unexpectedly. The hawk was still alert enough. Although it could not avoid it, it only injured its wings.
The eagle flew into the sky in shock, and was greeted by the hunter's cold arrows. It dodged three arrows, but was hit on the left wing by the fourth arrow. The hunter watched the black eagle fall from the sky, and happily took his two children. Picking up former partners, now prey. However, when they arrived at the approximate location, they found only blood stains but no body. After searching for a whole day, he still couldn't find it. The hunter suspected that someone else in the village had picked up the eagle, so he walked around the village angrily to see which house would emit the scent.
After five or six days, the mountain was searched all over, and no scent came out of the village. The hunter resigned and stopped looking.
But one day, the eagle appeared again and circled on the roof of the hunter's house again. The hungry family jumped up happily. They saw the dead mouse in the eagle's beak, and the hunter blew a familiar whistle. He whistled and ordered the eagle to come down. However, after circling for a while, the eagle suddenly flew to a nearby house, dropped the mouse into it, and then flew away.
Orion knocked on the door of the house angrily, but received no response. Through the crack in the door, he found two men, one large and one small, skewering the dead mouse with wooden sticks, roasting it, and eating it among themselves. The Orion was so anxious that Swearing. The two people finished eating and then left. The hunter scolded them for stealing their own rations, but they said it fell from the sky. Who said it belonged to the hunter? The three people struggled together, and at dusk, the hunter returned home with a bruised nose and a swollen face.
The eagle often appeared later, but the food always fell into other people's homes, so the hunter often fought with people, and the relationship with the villagers was very tense. Once he saw an eagle, he directly shot an arrow to kill it.
Everyone in the village knew that there was an eagle that brought food like this. At first they were filled with gratitude and said it was a blessing from God. However, the food brought by the eagle was too little, which often caused people to rob it, and people began to curse God. Being stingy and cursing the eagle for its incompetence, the whole village only waited for food from the eagle. Later, the whole village began to shoot the eagle, all wanting to eat a decent meal of meat.
The eagle disappeared for a while, and when it reappeared, it had a dead mouse in its beak and talons. The villagers screamed with joy and took out their tools to catch the eagle. The eagle circled over the village. After a while, he flew towards the mountains with food in his mouth, followed by a large number of hungry villagers, unaware that he had arrived in a swamp. By the time the villagers realized it, it was already too late, and everyone was trapped in the swamp. The eagle dropped the dead mouse, and then stood on the top of the mountain, watching indifferently as everyone sank into the mud and died slowly, cursing and crying. Voices and pleas spread throughout the valley, but God did not send any more gospel.
Later, the eagle disappeared. I heard that many children were lost during the great disaster. I heard that they were picked up and eaten by a black eagle. "
After Liu Juling finished speaking, he paused for a while without sighing, and then said: "This is the origin of 'Eagle'."
"Hmm," Mu Ziyun held his head in one hand and said sideways, "So what is the riddle? What secret do I want to decipher? Find the eagle, or analyze whether the previous stories are true or false?"
Liu Juling didn't reply. He seemed like a wooden man and kept reading.
Mu Ziyun suddenly took the book on the table and opened the cover. The title page did contain that sentence, but when he turned down the page, there was not a single word in the thick book. "
Mu Ziyun asked: "You haven't started writing yet. Do you want to collect those strange stories in this book?"
Even after asking several questions, Liu Juling did not answer. Just when he was about to get annoyed, Liu Juling suddenly turned his head, smiled very strangely, and said: "Only one story is true. Who is that person? There is only one chance to say Bar."
Mu Ziyun was stunned for a moment. This was a riddle. It came so unexpectedly that he almost forgot the details of the previous stories. He looked Liu Juling up and down, and after a while, he said with a smile: "It's not you anyway, I think there's something wrong with you, hiss... you just said that only one story is true, but you asked about 'that person' Who is it, that is to say, Han Yuzhen, Bai Songyuan, Liu Juling, Pu Zongyi, only one of these people is real, and it must not be you, right?"
Liu Juling did not reply. His expression maintained the weird smile when he spoke just now, but it seemed to be frozen without any change. Mu Ziyun concluded in his heart that this person was not real.
Turning his head sideways, Mu Ziyun looked at the bright yellow light on the table and fell into deep thinking. After a long time, Liu Juling suddenly said: "There is still time to count to thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty." seven....."
"Who decided? Why did it happen so quickly this time?"
"Seventeen, sixteen,... ten, nine, eight..." Liu Juling read the numbers dully, and Mu Ziyun was about to pick one of these four people. In the last two breaths, Mu Ziyun Suddenly shouted: "I know! The person who really exists is Du Baoyu!"
Liu Juling instantly froze his body like a lightning strike. At this moment, he finally had the look and breath of a human being. He was no longer like a piece of wood. He was "alive". He turned his head, and there was blood in his eyes, almost He asked with a trembling voice: "Why?"
"Hehe" Mu Ziyun smiled and replied, "Since only one person is real, then all the characters who have appeared can be counted. If it is the author, I have to carefully review the stories they recorded, but what? , what do these stories have to do with the author? I guess, if the person sitting next to me is not Liu Juling, but Bai Songyuan, there may be nothing else in his book except that story, because He, you, Pu Zongyi, and Han Yuzhen are all fake and created.
In fact, except for Du Baoyu, those stories all seem to have no beginning or end, and they seem to be true and illusion, but they can all be found in Du Baoyu. Liu Yushi, who gained glory and wealth because of the fox demon, was finally imprisoned by the fox demon. In a small room, reading day and night is just to get fame. I think this is because Du Baoyu's family was lagging behind, and he was pinned on the hope of the whole family's revival, and he was forced to study day and night to take the exam. There are inextricably linked.
As for the golden cage? Haha, I guess I am also talking about Du Baoyu himself. He was locked up in a cellar by a scholar. He had to compose good poems in order to survive. However, the scholar got his name from those poems. This is very similar to Huang Ying. He was locked up in a cellar. In the golden cage, you have to perform a show every day, otherwise you will face insults. The story of the eagle also shows that he has seen through the coldness and warmth of the world and the ugliness and ruthlessness of people. Alas... I can only explain so much, you just say I'm guessing right? "
After a while, Liu Juling's eyes dimmed, and he became a little sad. His appearance gradually changed, and he turned into a down-and-out white-faced young man. He smiled bitterly, sighed, and said: "Those two scholars, one is named Lu Wenhou, one is called Chen Shuang. They thought I was a lunatic and locked me underground. Only by writing good poems can I get a bowl of stinky rice. I want to live. Although I am alone, I still don’t want to die hastily. Later, I took advantage of Chen Shuang and used a few good poems to cause the two of them to fight among themselves and took the opportunity to escape. However, they were already quite famous because of my poems. I couldn't take revenge and couldn't do anything. I could only swallow my anger. You still have to avoid them, haha.”
Mu Ziyun said: "So you can only vent your anger in the story and kill them. Why do you put so much effort into making up authors from different dynasties and regard yourself as a character written by one of them?"
Du Baoyu didn't answer. Mu Ziyun suddenly realized and sighed: "So that's it. You don't want the world to know that you really exist."
Du Baoyu said with despair, "Heaven is unfair, my fate is unfair, the whole world is playing tricks on me, I am bruised and bruised, but I have no one to accompany me, hahaha... I am a weak person. Son, why can’t I play with other people? I made up characters, stories, poets, poets, etc. These stories have become household names and have been passed down for thousands of years. Then the truth emerges in the world. At that time, everyone was played by me. Well, the masters and talents they thought were just characters written by me, a stinky asshole, hehehe..."
"Later...did you find your jade?" Mu Ziyun asked.
Du Baoyu lost his voice and became completely silent, with no life on his face. At this time, in the dim room, a dazzling light came from behind Mu Ziyun. He turned around and saw a "light path" in front of him. Before the end, white light filled every place. He stepped forward and walked in confusion for a while, as if he had not walked out. Mu Ziyun stopped, curled up the corner of his mouth and said: "You have found it a long time ago, Han Yuzhen, that Han Zhangyi, who turns around to meet you, is your true jade."
Du Baoyu closed his eyes, raised the corners of his mouth slightly, and smiled comfortably, and an eagle flew out from behind Mu Ziyun, neighing softly, circling and flying, Mu Ziyun followed behind it, the eagle Later, he turned into an oriole and then into a parrot. Mu Ziyun walked in the dazzling white light. He knew that he was not heading towards a trap, but towards the end of the mystery.
